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Nvidia GTX470 Vs ATI 6870 (both @ £180)

linktoinsanity

linktoinsanity

linktoinsanity

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My GTX280 has died suddenly tonight, running Windows fine, but games = crash, repeating sound and no picture on reboot (for a couple of mins). So I am in a bit of a dilema. I don't want to spend Three hundred odd quid on a new gfx card, so, gonna go with one at about £180.

Traditionally I like Nvidia, tried ATI with the 4870 but sidestepped to the GTX280 as the heat it made was mental, either that or the sound it made. I don't want to mess about swapping coolers either.

I would like a card that equals my current GTX280, but that has DX11 support and hdmi connectivity. Nvidia would be prefferable, because I can just slot it in and not even worry about the drivers. However my laptop runs an ATI 5470, and it runs fine.

Suggestions?

Nvidia GTX470:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-117-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1810

ATI 6870:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-188-XF
 
Depends if your overclocking or not... GTX470 gets my vote. RE above the 470 has the better or matching tessellation performance if that counts for anything in heaven and civilisation at normal levels and completely buries the 6870 at extreme tessellation.
 
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First of all i would not listen to people that say the 6870 can't overclock as mine will do 1050 on the core on 1.25v and 1250 memory. So pretty much the core will do around 17% and the performance boost is pretty good. The gtx470 will usually overclock more but at stock i would say the 6870 has a slight lead.

If you are into overclocking the gtx470 will most likely go faster than the gtx480 and comes with more memory when comparing to the 6870. The drawbacks are more power usage by a good margin along with more heat and a noisy cooler if your case is not upto the job.

Its a hard one but if i was buying as my case cooling is good i would probably go for the gtx470. The main reason is overclocked i think the gtx470 would be somewhere in the region of 10-20% faster.

I will sum up by saying if you are not pushing overclocking wise the 6870 is a better card. Even when looking at memory amd still beat nv at higher resolution 1gb v 1.25gn from what i have seen.
 
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If you want something equal to your GTX280 I'd go for GTX460 1GB, but the price of the GTX470 it's a no brainer, get the GTX470.
 
nayan89 said:
If you want something equal to your GTX280 I'd go for GTX460 1GB, but the price of the GTX470 it's a no brainer, get the GTX470.
Click to expand...

Lol why is it a no brainer the gtx470 costs the same as a faster card at 1920x1200 and above which tells me the memory advantage helps little. The link below with lots of games tested shows theres nothing between the 2 cards. Personally i would say its a pretty hard choice.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_560_Ti/27.html
 
I meant between the GTX460/GTX470. Only reason I didn't recommend GTX560Ti is because he stated his budget is £180 :)
 
I saw you gave your input on the 6870, so I gave mine on the nvidia cards :p

Edit: Not much to compare between the 6870 and GTX470 so it's down to personal preference however OP said he prefers nvidia.
 
nayan89 said:
I saw you gave your input on the 6870, so I gave mine on the nvidia cards :p
Click to expand...

Lol i gave my opinion on both, he asked for gtx470 v 6870. I even stated i would go gtx470 because it will overclock further but i do have a good case haf x 932.

Edit: I agree with the above but he stated heat was the problem so gtx470 might be problematic.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Yeah MSI 470 has an excellent cooler, heat is not an issue, neither is fan noise. 470 is the better card, and once clocked it will bury the 900 core 6870.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/311?vs=290
Click to expand...

Its only superior like i said above if overclocking is involved. Those anandtech benches just go to show performance is close but my link has much more games tested which imo shows the 6870 to be faster. If you also read the op, i don't think he wants the heat dumped into his case from the gtx470. No matter what the gpu temps are the heat will be dumped into his case. The more i think about it he prefers nv but the card that suits him is most likely a 6870.

If its nv though add in a little more money and get a ti560 as it runs cool so you will have the best of both worlds.
 
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Nope I'll go with Anandtech, techs results are skewed due to the fact he benches Dirt2 in DX9 and not DX11 where Nivdia dominate.

Heat won't be a problem as long as there is a front intake and rear fan exhaust.
 
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Except in furmark I haven't noticed a huge difference in heat between my GTX470 SLI setup and the GTX260 SLI setup before it - tho it helps I have good case airflow maybe.

The newer TPU reviews with later drivers for both puts the overall performance between the 470 and 6870 out the box at +/-1% but the average 470 will overclock by atleast 15% more than the average 6870. Depends whether the extra 10-20% performance is worth the extra power useage and heat.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Nope I'll go with Anandtech, techs results are skewed due to the fact he benches Dirt2 in DX9 and not DX11 where Nivdia dominate.
Click to expand...

Stop being stupid 1 bench from all those games matters little. Read some dm posts to show how amd's best benchmarks were taken from the techpower bench suite. Although i think it was more the 5970 that was affected but it shows the site is not biased.

I think i already covered overclocking. I said if overclocking is not a main point the 6870 is a better card.
 
At idle there is not much in it power usage wise, how many hours does one game a day? power usage is not relevant unless you game 24/7.

@ thereal, the 470 is the better card, accept it, it's faster at stock, has a better cooler, and has more memory, the 470 is a no-brainer.
 
Wouldn't call TPU bias but their testing methodology leaves a lot to be desired - they seem to have upped their game in many respects lately i.e. no more weird and wonderful driver versions, but I still wouldn't take the benchmarks as gospel.
 
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